AGRICOLA

Tuckboxes

Tuckboxes keep cards organized and protected. Moreover, as compared to storage of cards loose in a well, tuckboxes convey (to me at least) the sense of a finished game. The file section here on BGG contains several PDFs of tuckboxes that are easy to assemble.

Printing -- You'll need to print the tuckboxes on card-stock paper to ensure that they are rugged and hold up over time. I simply copied the PDF of the tuckboxes onto a USB key, took it to my local Kinko's (now FedEx Office), and had the images printed on 80-pound white card stock. That's about the thickness of a business card. I might have preferred 100-pound paper going in, but the 80-pound paper turned out great. When printing, make sure the print-dialog box indicates that the image is not being scaled to fit the paper.

Assembly -- Assembling the tuckboxes is just a matter

of cutting on the designated lines, folding the boxes, and gluing/taping them together. To cut in straight lines, scissors might work, but you will probably have more luck with an Exacto knife and a metal ruler. The metal ruler also helps you get good, crisp folds during the folding phase.

For assembly, I used two-sided tape, rather than glue, because I didn't want glue squirting out into the box. Scrapbooking tape works great because it is sticky and durable when pressed, but can be removed and placed again, if you need to, before you secure it with pressure.

Organizer

For the organizer, I wanted a simple solution with one tray for the resources and one tray for the tiles. I settled on a system with the cards on the long wall, the tiles standing upright on the short wall, a resource tray, and a second story under the tray to hold the player pieces.

Main body

Here is the cross-section view of the height of various parts. The box is 68 mm tall, and I allowed 17 mm for the playing mats and instructions. That turned out just right. Most of the organizer has a floor of foam board. But I was using 5 mm thick foam board, so I omitted the floor for the two-story portion, to maximize storage space. That allows 25 mm for the bagged player pieces, which again is perfect to allow one to just toss the bagged pieces into the well.

All of the schematics and instructions below are based on 5 mm thick foam board.

Below is an overhead schematic of the main organizer body. The shaded area shows where the floorboard is. The red corners show where the organizer tray will sit -- on a rail a total of 25 mm above the bottom of the box. The schematic also shows, at the bottom, the dimensions of the left and right rail.

Here are the main body components all cut out, and then assembled into the main body (out of the box). I used mortise-and-tenon type joints on most of the joints to make them stronger and to better allow for pre-glue test assembly. If you are doing that too, be sure to initially cut your pieces 5 mm longer (or the thickness of your foam board), to allow room to trim away excess and form the tenon (the male part).

To cut the pieces, just mark the dimensions on your foamboard and use a sharp Exacto knife. Remember to replace your knife blade as it gets dull -- that makes a big difference. Finally, test the sizes of the assembled pieces in the box before you glue them together.

GluingIf you are using foam-core board, as many people here seem to do, be sure to get superglue gel, not superglue liquid. The liquid will run into the pores of the foam core and will not adhere as strongly as will the gel.

Resources Tray

The resources tray is pretty simple. It's just four walls, a central divider, and then ribs running across that backbone to form the separate component wells.

Because there are fewer reed, stone, and veggie chits than there are of other resource chits, those three wells and the food well can be a little smaller than the others -- making more room for the more numerous resource chits such as wood and clay.

Here is a schematic for the tray layout that I used:

Tray assembly is pretty straightforward. Again, if you are using mortise-and-tenon joints (as shown here), remember to allow the extra 5 mm on each side to form the tenons.

After completing the tray, I made angled ramps for each component well in the tray. That lets players avoid digging in a square-bottomed well for bits. Instead, players can slide the bits right out. This is one feature that makes the system functional even though it isn't necessary for organization.

To make the ramps, first cut out a rectangle of the same width as the appropriate well. Then lay down your metal ruler and make a cross-cut while holding the Exacto knife at a 45% angle. Rotate the piece and make a similar cross-cut. It may take a few trial runs. But you'll get a ramp that merges seamlessly with the

bottom and side of the well. A picture of the completed resource tray, with ramps, is below.

Tiles Tray

The ingenious idea for this tiles tray came from user Denise's organizer. Below are the schematics for a tray that fits in our system:

The tray efficiently doubles as a multiplier-token and claim-token storage unit. They get stacked in between the two buffers that separate the wood/clay and stone/field tiles. Measure the placement of that buffer by just putting your tiles in each side of the tray and then marking where they stop in the middle.

Here is the completed tiles tray, along with the completed resources tray (with ramps) holding resources; you can see the ramps in the resource tray by the angle of the bits near the edge:

Yes, the animeeples all fit into the tray!

Conclusions

The build went well, and I was able to complete the project with just one sheet of foam board. I used black foam board because it seemed to create a finished game look.

I learned several things from my build:* Buy an extra gel superglue tube and extra knife blades -- you'll need them.* When cutting the foamboard, make two passes along a metal ruler -- the first to pierce the top layer of paper and most of the foam; the second (with more

pressure) to pierce the bottom layer of paper.* It works just fine to cut the foam board on a sewing mat, which is a hard piece of rubber. A self-healing cutting mat would work great too.* Mortise-and-tenon joints are great for holding the pieces together without glue to make sure you have the perfect fit.* When cutting tenons into a piece, aim your cuts into the piece, not out of it. If your cutting direction is out of the piece, your blade may tear off foam from the piece edge as the blade exits.* To allow the bags to deflate all the way, use a one-hole-puncher to punch a hole at the top and bottom of each bag.* The design intentionally leaves wiggle room for the tiles tray to slide from side to side in its slot. That allows fingers to easily grasp the tray and pick it up. * The drop in the rail around the tiles tray is very useful in allowing players to pick up both the tiles tray and resources tray.* For a finishing touch, place a piece of black construction paper under the bottom well, so that the brown cardboard is not exposed.As you can see, everything fits in the box:

The resources tray sits on top of the player pieces and score sheet. You can see the tiles tray at the top:

and the player pieces fit nicely under the resource tray. As for storing the player pieces, one bag can be edged up to each corner, and the fifth bag folded to be more skinny and put in the middle.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/565530